


Conversation Piece

by daggerpen



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:11:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7408897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daggerpen/pseuds/daggerpen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabela has a housewarming gift for Hightown's newest noble. Mostly gen, with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it allusion to Handers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversation Piece

She's sitting on his desk when he walks in the door today, leaning over his railing and humming quietly to herself. It's a special day tomorrow, Hawke had been reminded earlier, the one month anniversary of their moving into the old Amell Estate, and his mother's taken Bodahn and Sandal out shopping for the occasion.

Hawke had passed on the occasion, himself, intending to stop by the empty, still half-cleaned Estate to change out of his armor and grab a meal less questionable than the Hanged Man’s stew before checking up on his friends.

Which means this saves him some time, he supposes, but even so-

“... did I give you my key?” Hawke asks, confused.

“Nope,” Isabela replies, not turning to look at him as she swings her legs.

“Oh, well, all right then,” Hawke says, and closes the door behind him. “But just so you know, if everyone's about to jump out and yell ‘surprise’, the first present I want is a new lock.”

That gets him a laugh, and Isabela turns on her perch to face him, crossing her legs and leaning back. “I thought the party was tomorrow?”

“Oh, no, the party's definitely tonight!” He answers cheerfully, leaving down to scratch a dozing Chaser behind the ears. Some guard dog, he thinks fondly, but it's not like he actually minds. “Food, friends, rat-piss flavored ale - and then a bunch of nobles are showing up to my house tomorrow for some reason, apparently?”

Isabela laughs again, then slides off of her desk, walking over towards him. “So, does that mean I'm not getting that invitation?” She leans an arm on his shoulder. “And here I'd heard the cake would be to _die_ for.”

“Oh, I'm doing you a favor! Can you imagine, having to show up to a fancy party all dolled up? Mingling with the nobles, tittering with the gossip mongers? I can hear them now -” He affects the Orlesian accent practiced by the worst of the Hightown crowd briefly - ‘oh, well, at least she is not one of those filthy refugees!’”

Isabela laughs at that one, too, a lot colder as she slides her arm away, and Hawke mentally files that one under the list of sore spots he's learned better than to poke, alongside a heated tear at a man whose wife had disappeared and a locked box with a relic lost by the woman he never _had_ given his key.

“Well, if you'd really rather I abandon you to their mercies,” she says, waving a hand. “I'm sure you'll all have so much to talk about!”

“Oh, it'll be a delight!” Hawke says cheerily. “I'm learning so many new words for Fereldans already.” He lets the affect fall. “It's a party for Mother, not for me,” he continues. “The company _I'd_ prefer doesn't matter.” It comes out quieter than he'd like, and he's louder when he asks, “I'm smuggling hor’deurves for Merrill, Anders and his patients after, though, if you'd like to lay claim to a share.”

“Aw, instead of saving room for the rat-piss ale?” And there's warmth in that grin again, so Hawke returns it in measure as he folds his arms, leaning a shoulder against the fireplace.

“So what _does_ bring you to my humble abode today?” Hawke asks lightly. “And don't tell me it's that Relic again - I'm still recovering from the spiders.”

“Hey, it got Anders’ hands all over you, didn't it?” She thwaps his chest with a hand playfully, and Hawke almost misses catching the package she leaves behind before it falls. “It's a housewarming present, you lout.”

“A housewarming present?” Hawke glances down at the package in his hands, blinking slightly. “What is it?”

“Well, it's not a lock, I'll tell you that much.” She gestures at him. “Open it, would you?”

He does, and finds himself blinking down in surprise at…

“It's a statue,” she tells him helpfully.

“Of a man in repose wearing nothing but a cheese wheel, I see.” He turns it over is his hands, staring. “... is that… King Calenhad?”

“And his mabari!” She's positively beaming. “Isn't it just the most _Fereldan_ thing you've ever seen?”

“It is at that.” He tosses it in a hand. “And what exactly am I supposed to _do_ with it?”

“What does anyone do with a statue? Put it on display somewhere,” Isabela tells him. “I hear these things make wonderful talk at parties.”

And suddenly, he puts the pieces together. Hawke sets the… figure… down on the nearby desk. “The party is for my mother, not for me, you know.”

“Just like the last three, right?” she asks him. Hawke feels a tug at the corner of his mouth, and he's not really sure which way it wants to go.

“Isabela…”

“You don't _have_ to do anything with it,” Isabela tells him before he can continue. “That's the point of it. It's yours, and you can do whatever _you_ want with it.” She claps a hand on his shoulder and moves towards the door. “I'll see you at the Hanged Man tonight?”

“... I'll be there,” Hawke tells her, and he _is_ smiling as he picks up the statue again, tossing it in a hand and chuckling to himself.

He pauses again as he passes his desk, seeing his papers disturbed where Isabela had planted herself, as well as…

“... Isabela!” He covers his face with a hand and laughs. “Who carves _that_ into a stairwell?”

Well, he supposes there's nothing quite like a friend's good natured vandalism to really make a place feel like home.

… all right, _maybe_ it can go just next to the canapés. Just… as a conversation piece.


End file.
